Chapter 62 The timing was against us…
The timing was against us, but what a time that was.
“Samar!” She held his shoulders as he held her up in his arms. “Warn before doing these things.”
“Did you warn before doing this to me?”
“What did I do?”
“I was a man lifting rocks. See now.” He turned with her, making her twine her arms around his neck as he stepped across the main threshold.
Amaal did not even look at the house ahead, her eyes only for the face of the man she had loved, chosen, again and again, married.
He was not a man a woman would choose at first glance, even in his prime.
But what could she do? She had stood no chance.
No other man had held appeal once he had begun to hold her.
He accused her of throwing a spell on him.
She would never tell him that he had tied her first. This was more fun.
“Hey…” she protested as he deposited her on her feet again. Amaal glanced down and found a gleaming brass Kalash filled with rice grains, a plate of red kumkum paste in front of it, lined by a white cloth tamped down on the floor, leading into the main house.
“Whose planning was this?” She asked, even as she knew the culprit.
“Your mom.” His hand trailed down her shoulder and to the sliver of skin between her blouse and waist. “But I asked her for it.”
She gaped at him — “Since when do you believe in all this?”
“Am I not supposed to believe in you walking inside my house for the first time and leaving your imprint?”
Amaal swallowed, then looked down.
“With your right foot.” He pointed.
“I know.” She held her saree pleats up and gently tipped the Kalash down, stepping into the plate of red. He held her hand. Amaal looked at him again — “Thank you.”
His mouth landed on her temple, and pressed. Hard. His nose pressed into her hair. “Thank you.”
Amaal smiled, tears clouding her eyes as she blinked to clear her gaze in order to see her steps. She stepped out of the plate and onto the pristine, white cotton. She walked, with her footprints going fainter and fainter until she reached the floor and again he swooped her up.
“Samar, enough.” She tried to get down. “I was joking outside.”
“I was not.” He carried her through the hall and through an area that had a long dining table for eight.
“We don’t want to tax your body, even if you are recovered…”
“I haven’t even started taxing it yet.”
She didn’t have time to absorb the implication of that statement before he set her on one of the three platforms running through the open kitchen. Amaal opened her eyes wide and gaped around. It wasn’t set up fully, but the kitchen looked like it was functional.
“Go ahead.”
She brought her gaze back to him and he was holding out another plate of red. Her brows rose.
“There,” he pointed at the wall over the burner stove.
“Don’t spoil the look…” she whined.
“We’ll wipe it off tomorrow.”
Amaal huffed, pressed her palms into the plate he held and leaned up over the stove.
The platform was so wide that she couldn’t reach the wall.
He grabbed her waist in both hands and hitched her.
And even though she had qualms about spoiling the look of the newly done kitchen, Amaal smiled through pressing her palms’ imprints on Samar’s wall.
“Happy?” She joked, sitting back. His head was turned to the wall — “Looks nice.”
He was serious.
“We are wiping it off tomorrow,” she pushed her face close to his ear and his mouth captured hers.
Amaal fisted her palms lest she hold him, bending back as his tongue invaded her mouth.
He circled her wrists and wound them around his neck, holding her waist, running his thumbs over her bare skin.
She still kept her hands fisted, crossing them behind his neck.
He tilted his face and the edge of his specs pressed into her skin. She moaned, squeezing his neck between her arms, pushing closer to him. He pulled back. Their eyes met. Their breaths mingled.
Samar took off his specs and set them beside her. Her heart picked up pace.
He reached behind his head and unfisted her palms. She hesitated.
But he pushed her still-wet fingers into his collar.
Emboldened, she roved her red fingers all over his neck, his hair, trying to find a way into his skin.
And he pressed closer, taking her mouth again.
This time slow. Second by second. Her lower lip, then her upper lip, then again her lower lip, suckling.
She pressed her mouth open and he pulled back.
His thumb came to her lower lip, wiping it.
“Don’t stop…”
His face came close again, their eyes connected with something superhuman that neither could break away from.
He opened his mouth and pressed his teeth into her lower lip.
She winced, her eyes finally breaking away from his to fall shut, squeezing in now what she knew was pain and pleasure.
In so many different parts of her body, but most of all, the centre of her being.
“I am not going to use protection.” He said.
She snapped her eyes open. His dark gaze was looking at her intently, inquiringly.
“Do you want me to use it?”
Amaal stared at him. Then slowly shook her head.
He palmed her cheek, his face turning even more intense but his eyes softening.
“Not here.” She glanced around them.
“Not here.” He agreed, taking her hand and letting her step down. “In our bed.” He touched his mouth to the apple of her cheek. “We have earned it.” He left a nip there.
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His bedroom… their bedroom, opened up like a fresh beginning. Bright cream walls, sunlight from open curtains, a bed made in pristine white, bare furniture that waited for their lives. The click of the door made her freeze.
Amaal turned, and found his fingers on the button of his koti, eyes on her. She gulped, stepping back, finding the bed behind her and crumbling down on it.
“Like it?” He asked, the tucking sound of buttons opening punctuating the silence.
“I haven’t seen it yet.” She managed, eyes on his chest.
He took off his koti and set it aside. “I meant the room.”
Amaal glanced up. His voice had gone deeper. The sun was in his black eyes and gleaming brighter from the white of his kurta. And then he pulled it off.
Amaal had seen him, in snippets and instalments, mostly in shadows, like she had lived this love with him.
But now, he stood here, in bright sunshine, naked from the waist up, letting her see every inch of his melted skin without any barrier.
She felt movement and immediately her eyes went down, only to see him pull the drawstrings holding his pyjama up and pushing it all the way down with everything else.
Saliva pooled in her mouth. She swallowed before she did something indecent. And his palm found her chin.
“Ready?” He tipped her jaw up.
She stared, unblinking, excited, nervous, joyous… a little scared. All the feelings that he had ignited inside her from the first time she had realised she had fallen for him. She nodded.
He bent down to her ear — “Then show me.”
Their eyes clashed, and she read the smirk in his eyes.
Amaal grabbed him around the neck and pulled him down on the bed, turning until he was underneath her.
He expected it, because his hands remained by his side, held up in surrender.
She smiled, lowering her head to kiss the column of his neck.
He let her. She went lower, kissing the puckered leathery skin of his pectorals.
Her hands roved his sides, nails trailing across muscles and veins.
Her mouth went lower, to the smoother skin of his navel, melting again into grafts disappearing down below, where older scars lived.
Amaal opened her mouth but firm fingers fisted her hair.
“Not like this.” He pulled her up. She gaped.
He eyed her saree. “Off.”
She pushed to her feet and he sat up, not even touching her as she began to undress.
It felt far more intimate when he watched.
And she was forced to turn away from him to hold her own.
Amaal walked to the oval mirror frame in the corner to escape him and found him behind her in the reflection, eyes on her. He stood up, and ambled towards her.
“Now you turn away from me?” He whispered, gathering her hair in his hand and tugging it aside.
“Shouldn’t I?” She finished stepping out of her petticoats, heating up at the bright red lingerie that she had chosen for this day.
He fingered the lace of the opening — “Would I let you?”
Her stomach contracted, and something down below began to gush.
His finger pushed through the lace and inside her.
And she bucked forward, feeling her arm grabbed in his and tugged up behind and around his neck.
She followed it up with her other one and held onto the back of his neck, clawing and scratching at his uneven skin as he made her body his personal wave.
His fingers worked mercilessly. And her body forgot everything.
He stopped abruptly.
She gasped, on the cusp.
Their eyes met in the mirror.
His fingers pulled out, and then they were peeling the scraps of red lace off her body.
Her stomach tautened. He ran a knuckle around her bellybutton, trailing back down to where she needed it.
His eyes kept her ensnared, and his knuckle hovered in the air over her.
Amaal inhaled, panting, waiting. And then she lost his eyes as they dipped to where his knuckle hovered.
She followed his gaze and it penetrated her.
Her eyes squeezed shut, feeling it go so deep and hook around something electrifying. She screamed. And then she was being lifted again, in the air, and on the bed. Their bed.